20 SCARIEST Moments in Golf History

20 SCARIEST Moments in Golf History

From near fatal accidents on the course to players suddenly collapsing mid- tournament, these are the scariest moments ever happened in golf. And first we start with this one. We’re heading to the 2025 Memorial Tournament at Murefield Village. Final round. Cameras everywhere. Tension already in the air. Jordan Spe got himself into a little trouble on the very first hole. He’s in the rough stuck behind some trees. Not a great lie, but you know Spe, right? He’s the guy who somehow turns chaos into magic. Except this time, Magic almost turned into a horror show. Jordan steps up, eyes the pin, and decides to go for it. No layup, no hesitation. He rips the club back, launches it, and this ball comes out of the rough like a missile. And I’m not joking when I say it goes directly at the gallery. People duck, people scream. One guy almost eats a titalist ball for breakfast. Even the commentators freeze before blurting out, “What is he doing?” And Jordan just stands there, hands on hips like it’s nothing. The ball misses a fan’s face by inches. Later, Spaves Par and walks off like it’s just another day at the office. But online, golf Twitter is in full meltdown. Not just about the shot, but about how close fans were standing to the action. Some people blamed Spath for even attempting the shot. But let’s be honest, that’s what pros do. They go for it. The real question is why were fans standing just feet away in the first place? These days, everyone wants front row access to every swing, but at some point marshals and tournament officials have to step in. The ropes way too close. One more yard and this whole moment could have ended in a stretcher. At number 14, we’ve got one of the scariest physical collapses the golf world has ever seen and one of the gutsiest comebacks to go with it. It’s the 2015 US Open at Chambers Bay and Jason Day is quietly building momentum on a brutally tough course. Then Friday hits, final hole of his second round. He walks up to the green and suddenly he drops. No warning, no stumble, just boom, straight to the ground. He lies there on the grass, motionless, one arm over his eyes. It looks bad, like tournament ending bad. Medics rush to his side. Fans are frozen. His playing partners stand in silence, unsure what to do. It turns out Jason wasn’t just dizzy. He was battling vertigo. Full-blown can’t stand up room spinning vertigo. The kind that makes just walking a struggle, let alone playing championship golf. But here comes the craziest part. Everyone expects him to withdraw. How could he possibly keep going? Somehow he finishes the hole. Somehow he signs his card. And somehow he shows up the next day and ties for the lead after round three. You heard that right. Less than 24 hours after collapsing on live TV, Jason Day comes back and puts himself in position to win a major. His legs are shaky, his head is spinning, but his game ice cold. By Sunday, the symptoms finally catch up to him and he fades to a T9 finish. But let’s be real, the fact that he even finished the tournament is insane. All right, coming in at number 13, we’re going back to the Masters, April 2023. Sure, everyone remembers the battle between John Rom and Brooks Cupka. And yeah, Phil Mickelson turned back the clock and snuck in for a share of second, but you know what most people really remember from that Friday afternoon? Two giant pine trees nearly flattening the 17th tea. No joke. The wind picks up. Patrons are standing around watching like it’s just another day at Augusta. And then crack, the unmistakable sound of wood snapping. Seconds later, two enormous Georgia pines come crashing down, splitting the sky and smashing into the ground just feet from where dozens of people had been standing. Chairs go flying. Fans scream and dive for cover. For a split second, Augusta doesn’t look like a golf course anymore. It looks like a disaster scene. Play is stopped immediately. Emergency crews rush in. The entire area is taped off. And somehow, miraculously, no one is hurt. Not one person. One wrong move, one unlucky step, and this moment could have been fatal. Instead, it became one of the scariest near misses in Mast’s history. Now, we’re at number 12, and it’s 2025. We’re deep into the third round of the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow. And John Rom, he’s not just playing for position, he’s trying to charge his way back into the mix. Every shot counts. Every step feels important. It’s intense, but it’s also just another day on tour until it’s not. Rahm is standing over his approach shot on the par4 11th. The crowd’s packed in tight. Phones are out. Everyone’s ready to see Rahm throw a dart onto the green. But when he swings, the shot takes off a little hot, a little left, and then it drills a spectator in the head. You can hear it. That unmistakable thud sound that cuts through the cheers. For a split second, the scene turns from elite golf to something way more terrifying. Rahm sees it immediately. His face changes. He drops the club and heads straight toward the fan. The man somehow is okay, stunned, but upright. He even waves and gives a shaky thumbs up. And Rohm, he wraps him in a hug, makes sure he’s all right, and takes the glove off his hand to sign and gift it to the fan right then and there. No cameras needed, no PR move, just a raw human reaction to a scary accidental moment. And then just like that, Rahm goes back to business, shakes off the bogey, rattles off three birdies in his next five holes. The guy got rattled, too, just in a completely different way. Which brings us to number 10 on our list, and this one’s straight up painful. Literally. It’s a routine sunshine tour round in South Africa. Jacques Cruzvike is aiming for a perfect escape from behind a tree and instead delivers one of the most humiliating golf shots ever caught on camera. He swings. The ball clangs off the tree trunk and wham! Ricochets right into his groin. No exaggeration. He drops to his knees for a moment. Half shock, half agony, then slowly bends over, clearly trying to recover his breath. Dignity and every last ounce of composure. Think about it. not plowing your drive into a water hazard or chunking your approach into sand. And yet he doesn’t laugh off or walk away. He finishes the swing, walks to his ball, collects it, and without so much as a mulligan, continues on. It’s almost like, “Yes, this happened. Yes, it hurt. Now, let’s get back to business.” On social media, fans couldn’t stop monkeying around. Memes, mock sympathy, best swing of the year jokes. ESPN even caught footage. The pain real, the recovery, respect. Coming in at number nine, and let’s just say if you’ve ever thought golf was a low contact sport, this moment will change your mind. It’s 2014 WGC Accenture match play Dove Mountain in Arizona. And there’s Rory Mroy battling through a tough match, grinding in the desert heat. He pushes a shot a little offline. Nothing wild, just one of those tricky desert lies you get in Arizona. Rocks, bushes, cacti. Pick your poison. So Rory steps up, takes a hack, and boom, the ball takes a weird bounce, jumps left, and slams straight into a spectator. Not the arm, not the leg. The kind of hit that knocks the guy completely off balance. And where does he land? Right into a chala cactus. Back first, full impact. Now, if you don’t know what a chala is, picture a cactus designed by someone who hates people. Barbed spines nearly impossible to remove. And this poor guy, he’s instantly covered. Q. Total chaos. Volunteers are running in. Medics scrambling. Random fans pulling out brushes, pliers, anything they can find, trying to get the needles out of this guy’s back. Rory just stands there frozen, watching the madness unfold. He knows it’s bad. Really bad. Golf may look safe, but out here in Arizona, one unlucky bounce can turn a day at the course into an episode of Survivor Man, rolling into number eight. What do you do when your ball ends up a few inches from a 90 ft cliff? Most players would panic. Some would call for a rules official. Almost everyone would take the drop and move on. But not Jordan Spe. It’s 2022 at the AT&T Pebble Beach ProAm, one of the most stunning golf courses on Earth and also one of the most dangerous. The eighth hole is already intimidating. Tight fairway, ocean on the right, wind doing its own thing, and speed. He yanks his T-OT just a little too far. The ball stops right near the edge. And when we say edge, we mean actual cliff. Like one more roll and it’s a straight drop into the Pacific Ocean. Everyone assumes he’s taking the drop. Caddies are nervous. The crowd’s fidgeting. Even the cameras are zoomed in waiting to see what he’ll do. But Spith walks right up to the ball and decides to play it. No ropes, no railings, just his heels hanging over a cliff and 90 ft of air below him. It’s not even clear how he’s standing upright. And then he swings. He sends the ball flying over the water and back into play. Somehow it works. But as soon as it’s over, you can see it on his face. He knows that could have gone horribly wrong. Later he admits it. If I had slipped, I don’t know. I don’t like thinking about it. Neither does anyone else. Now we’re at number seven, and this one isn’t just scary, it’s tragic. We’re at the 2018 Ryder Cup in France, and the atmosphere is electric. Fans lining every fairway, chanting, singing. This isn’t your typical golf crowd. It’s louder, wilder, and way more intense. And Brooks Cupa, he’s ready to make a statement on the opening day. He steps up to the tea on the par4 6th hole. absolutely unleashes one classic Brooks. But then it hooks. Bad. Real bad. And within seconds, everything changes. The ball flies into the gallery and slams straight into the face of a spectator, a woman who had no time to react. The noise drops. Marshalss rush over. Brooks sprints down the fairway, reaches her, and what he sees is horrifying. Her eye is swollen shut. Blood is dripping down her cheek. She’s holding her head, stunned as medics quickly take over. Brooks kneels next to her, holding her hand, trying to apologize. But there’s not much he can say. The damage is already done. But here comes the absolute worst part. It turned out to be permanent. The woman lost vision in that eye forever. Later, she would go on to sue the event organizers, either the Rder Cup authorities or the European tour for what she claimed was poor safety planning and a lack of adequate warnings in the crowd area. And honestly, who could blame her? Next up, number six. And this one feels like it was scripted for a comedy sketch. Only it really happened. It’s a long drive competition. Crowd packed in behind the ropes, everyone there to see some bombs. A female amateur steps up, rips her first shot, and it’s a shank. The ball veers wildly into the crowd and smacks an older woman straight to the ground. Gasps. People rush to check on her, but the golfer, she doesn’t miss a beat. She tees up another ball. Second swing, boom. And incredibly, she hits the exact same woman again. No joke, same person. Two swings, two direct hits. The crowd is stunned. Someone yells, “Make her cut it out.” And people aren’t even mad. Like, they’re just in total disbelief. The poor woman just can’t catch a break. No serious injuries were reported, thank God. But this this was a master class in what not to do on a golf course because hitting a bad shot happens. But doing it twice to the same person, that’s nightmare fuel. Now we’re at number five and something about this one just feels heavy. It’s January 2025 and we’re back at the Sony Open in Hawaii. The same tournament where Grayson Murray once shined. Big drives, big personality, a player who always stood out. But this year, Grayson’s not here. And the silence around it, it says everything. Memorial ribbons, players with glassy eyes, and Web Simpson, one of Grayson’s closest friends, trying to hold it together in front of the crowd. I miss him a ton, he says, voice barely steady. Later, Grayson’s parents share the story he never told publicly. his private battle with anxiety, depression, and addiction. Things he carried quietly while the world watched only the scorecard. Now in his memory, they’ve created the Grayson Murray Foundation, hoping to help others in the game who are quietly hurting, too. We talk about terrifying moments in golf, weather, injuries, freak accidents. But this this was something deeper because sometimes the scariest moments don’t happen on the course. They happen in silence and no one sees them coming. Up next, number four. And let’s just say this one feels like it was ripped straight out of a horror movie. It’s the 2014 Maybank Malaysian Open second round. And there’s this Spanish golfer, quiet, steady, going about his business in the scorching heat of Koala Lumpur. Nothing flashy, just grinding to make the cut. Then something feels off. He steps up to his ball and out of nowhere, he starts swatting at the air. At first, it looks like a bug flew too close. No big deal. But then it happens again and again. And before anyone fully realizes what’s going on, Pablo Lara Zabal is being attacked by hornets. Not one, not two, but a swarm. He throws down his club. He’s running across the fairway in full panic. Fans are ducking. Caddies are bolting. Larzabal rips off his shirt and dives straight into a lake just to escape. Total chaos. Officials later said he was stung over 20 times. Medics rushed in, gave him treatment, and here’s the craziest part. He finished the round. He literally climbed out of a pond, dried off, and made birdie on the very next hole. Let that sink in. He was literally under attack by killer hornets and still managed to walk away with a red number on the scorecard, sliding into our top three. Jack Newton wasn’t just a talented golfer. He was a star on the rise. By the early 1980s, he’d already come heartbreakingly close to winning golf’s biggest prizes, including a playoff loss at the 1975 Open Championship and a runner-up finish at the 1980 Masters alongside Sev Ballister. Newton was beloved by fans for his charisma, skill, and reputation as one of golf’s good guys. The sky seemed to be the limit, but in 1983, everything changed in an instant. At an airport in Sydney, Newton mistakenly walked into the spinning propeller of a plane. The accident was horrifying. Newton’s injuries were so severe that doctors doubted he would survive. He spent weeks in intensive care, enduring surgeries and fighting for his life. Against all odds, he pulled through, but the cost was unimaginable. He lost his right arm and eye, and his professional golfing career was over. For most, such a tragedy might have meant the end of the story. But Jack Newton wasn’t most people. He refused to let the accident define him, finding new ways to stay involved in the sport he loved. From commentary to coaching and even promoting junior golf, Newton became a beacon of resilience and inspiration in the golf world. Here we are with number two of the list. We’re talking about Payne Stewart, a legend in the making. Known for his sharp sense of style, his infectious personality, and his ability to light up the course, Stuart had become one of the most beloved figures in golf. His victory at the 1999 US Open at Pinehurst, clinched with a dramatic 15 ft putt, was a moment of pure magic. Just a few months later, he helped lead the US team to victory in the RDER Cup, solidifying his place as one of golf’s true icons. It felt like Payne Stewart was on top of the world. But in October of 1999, everything changed tragically. On his way to the season ending tournament in Houston, Stuart’s private plane lost cabin pressure, depriving everyone on board of oxygen. The plane flew on autopilot for hours until it eventually ran out of fuel and crashed. The news sent shock waves through the golfing world and beyond. Fans and fellow players were left reeling, struggling to comprehend the sudden loss of someone who had come to embody the joy and passion of the game. Payne Stewart wasn’t just a champion. He was a role model, a sportsman who played with respect, heart, and a love for the game that inspired millions. And finally, the big number one. We’re heading back to August 1991 during the PGA Championship at Crooked Stick Golf Club in Carmel, Indiana. The tournament was already gaining steam, mainly because of an unexpected breakout. John Daly, a total unknown at the time, had snuck into the field as the ninth alternate and was suddenly blasting the ball past everybody and turning heads with every hole he played. It felt like something special was happening. But then the weather decided it had other plans. As the opening round rolled on, the skies started to shift. Clouds thickened, the wind picked up, and then the storm hit fast and fierce. Thunder cracked above the gallery like a cannon. Lightning lit up the sky. Players scrambled for shelter. Fans dropped to the ground, ducking low, trying to stay safe. And that’s when it happened. A bolt of lightning ripped through the course, slicing through the air and striking a spectator. A 39-year-old man named Thomas Weaver from nearby Fisers, Indiana. He collapsed instantly. Onlookers were horrified. Medical staff rushed to him, but it was too late. The strike was fatal. Play was suspended and for a moment the event hung in limbo. When the storm finally passed, the championship resumed, but the mood had shifted dramatically. John Daly pressed on, his focus unwavering, and went on to achieve his first major victory. But the celebration was subdued, forever overshadowed by the tragic loss that marked that day. Oh, and now that you’re still with us, we have another great golf video for you to watch right in the middle of the screen. Enjoy.

✅ Please Subscribe To The Channel and Join Us In Our Journey To 30k subs
https://www.youtube.com/@ESNGOLF?sub_confirmation=1

20 SCARIEST Moments in Golf History

Watch next –

00:00 Head
01:41 Collapse
03:08 Crashing down
04:16 Fan shot
05:42 Ricochet Nightmare
06:50 Ouch
08:13 Cliff
09:33 Ryder Cup
10:57 Twice
11:58 Silence
13:04 Attack
14:21 Life-Changing
15:35 Tragedy
16:47 RIP

Contact Us –
Business inquiries: esngolfbusiness@gmail.com
Copyright issues? Reach out at esngolfbusiness@gmail.com

Copyright Disclaimers –
Our content is used in adherence to YouTube’s Fair Use guidelines. This may include copyrighted video clips and images used under U.S. Copyright Act Section 107 for commentary, news reporting, educational purposes, and more, without specific authorization from copyright holders.

#lpga #golf #pga